After
by Vermilion Angel
Summary: The aftermath of an operation.


This lark again?

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the breeze, my payment nothing but the smiles of children.

Thanks to E-Pony for being incredibly awesome.

**After**

By Vermilion Angel

They could spend days, weeks or even months waiting – tensed like a coiled spring, biding their time, ready to go at any moment. And the waiting would always feel like an age, a slow torture that would suddenly end in a rush of adrenaline. Sometimes the excitement would be over in seconds; sometimes it would take hours. But whenever it happened, it burned through their bodies, energising tired muscles and sharpening reactions. They heard everything – saw everything – with pinpoint clarity. Voices rose, only to be shattered by thunderous gunfire. Pain numbed out, as the breath caught in their lungs.

Then, just as suddenly, silence would return, bringing with it awareness of pain creeping back into weary bodies, of bruises where they had hit the floor, of warm blood sliding down raw skin. Their breaths would slide out in one long sigh, and their muscles would begin to tremble. This was the time to take stock – to tally the dead, to tend to the wounded.

Doyle was smiling, partly because of the rush and partly because he was still alive. His forehead was grazed from when he had dived too hard to avoid a shot. But the mark was a battle scar, a prize to be shown off to his colleagues who were wandering around, some laughing, some morose and some showing no emotion whatsoever. There were eight of them in all: each a highly trained operative; each ready to deal death and to receive it in return.

Doyle also had a tender spot along his forearm that looked to be developing an impressive bruise. He'd rolled his sleeve up to look at it and decided to leave it alone. It was just another trophy to display.

After a moment, Doyle turned and surveyed the site. The air smelled of blood and cordite, mixed with ancient dust and dampness. He looked at his gun, which was still warm from firing, and reloaded it with shaking fingers before he slid it back into its holster.

The worn wooden floor creaked under Doyle's boots as he stalked around the room. It was an old library, but the books had been sold off long ago, leaving bare shelves and a desk in the far corner. That desk had saved Doyle's life, absorbing bullets in a shower of splintered wood.

The ex-policeman walked towards the windows at the other end of the room. Although confident of his kill, he stooped to examine the body lying there. One of his fellow agents was talking quietly into his radio a few feet away; the man glanced over at Doyle and gave him a thumbs-up. Doyle nodded in reply, toeing the body with his boot before heading to check out the rest of the old house.

Built in the nineteenth century, the crumbling Victorian had lately been the hideout of a gang of would-be anarchists. They had wanted to start a civil war, but CI5 had given them a war of a different sort.

Doyle descended a staircase at one end of the house and walked down a long hallway toward the back. He passed a few more of his colleagues, including one pushing a cuffed and bleeding prisoner before him. The agents nodded to one another, smiling.

Bullet holes dotted the walls and doors at the end of the hall. Another body lay in a doorway, and a wounded CI5 man sat in the room beyond. Doyle paused, stepped over the corpse and headed toward the agent. Grinning, the other man looked up and shook his head. Doyle stopped and then nodded, before backing out into the hallway toward the door at the very end.

Beyond that door was the kitchen, which led to the garden and a number of outbuildings. Doyle turned the knob and stepped into the small room, squinting at the bright afternoon sunlight that streamed through the windows overlooking the garden.

He walked through the kitchen, his boots crunching the broken glass that littered the floor. Opening the back door, he stepped outside into the garden, pausing to savour the warmth of the sun on his face and the gentle rustle of the breeze through the bordering trees. The air smelled fresh and sweet, redolent with the scent of wildflowers and summer rain.

Doyle saw something flash brightly in the grass just ahead. When he stooped to pick it up, he found it was a nine-millimetre bullet casing. He held it in his palm for a moment and then threw it away. There had been shooting here, too.

Doyle looked back at the house before continuing on toward the large storage shed at the end of the garden. It stood close to a high brick wall covered with creeping ivy. Birds sang somewhere amid those tangled vines, oblivious to what had happened not so long ago.

The building itself was in obvious disrepair. The roof slates were falling off, and the door hung ajar on its hinges, offering only the merest glimpse inside. Doyle drew to a halt, suddenly afraid of the world beyond that door. Things could go wrong so quickly; it only took a split-second to end a life. A lucky shot, a single error, a superior skill – each could prove instantly fatal.

The agent ran his tongue over dry lips and watched the doorway for a moment, searching for it in a blur of memories. When he found it, his heart began to beat faster. But still he walked towards the door, needing to see what lay beyond, yet not wanting to.

Under fire, he had been focused. It had been kill or be killed, protect and survive. Doyle's concerns had been narrow: stay alive and ensure the survival of the agent pinned down on the far side of the room. For five minutes that room had been his world, and nothing else had penetrated his thoughts. But now, as the dust settled on the battlefield, he was allowing other things to cloud his mind. He pushed open the door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

Bodie had gone in through the garden with three other operatives, hoping to find the terrorists' weapons store and to cut them off from it. Doyle didn't know yet – hadn't asked – about his partner's team. They had dispersed into the buildings at the back just before the battle.

Now as he peered into the largest of those buildings, Doyle saw two agents, one standing, and another sitting on a crate. Two cuffed and wounded men lay on the floor between them. Realising neither of the CI5 men was his partner, Doyle moved on.

Fear, perhaps irrational, ran over the back of his neck, as he walked towards the outbuilding in the opposite corner of the garden. In his mind, Doyle consoled himself with humour, carefully schooling his face into an impassive mask. He opened the door and found a gun briefly trained on him. A moment later, though, it was lowered.

Another agent, with two dead men at his feet, stood in the semi-darkness. He was bleeding, but smiled at Doyle just the same. The ex-policeman gave him a questioning look and received a shrug in return.

Disappointed, Doyle left the building and stood in the middle of the tall grass. He immediately saw the two agents from the first building walking out with their prisoners. Then, hearing shouts behind him, Doyle turned. An ambulance attendant and one of his team jogged past him toward where the injured agent was.

Back in the library, Doyle had had no time for fear. Now, under a clear summer sky, it spread through him like a poison. He started walking back toward the largest outbuilding, taking a turn just before it and heading down to where the agents had first come over the wall. There, he found shell casings but nothing else, so he continued along the side of the house to the front garden.

A few ambulances were parked on the weed-ridden driveway, with lights flashing but no sirens. Doyle saw attendants loading both agents and criminals into the vehicles. The two vans that had brought the CI5 men, as well as two other cars and a police-car, stood empty at the kerb.

Doyle had not come in the same van as his partner. They had said goodbye in the locker room at HQ, with a nod of the head and a pat on the shoulder. A brief, sad smile exchanged between them had said everything that needed to between friends facing near-certain death.

Doyle heard the crunch of footsteps on the driveway, but he had no chance to turn before an arm was slung across his shoulders. Then, Bodie was there, grinning broadly at him, with relief written across his face. Doyle returned the sentiment, putting one arm around his partner's back to rest a hand on his shoulder.

Bodie was the first to speak, and his voice conveyed the satisfaction that always followed a successful operation. "I've been looking for you everywhere, mate." It was a simple statement of fact, but it also was a code understood plainly by both men.

Doyle smiled and shrugged in reply, but not hard enough to dislodge Bodie's arm. "I was just thinking the same thing," he said.

End


End file.
